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Prophetic Pictures
This section originally appeared within the "Spiritual Intelligence" section of Part II of the Manifesto, entitled The Prophetic Dimension. This section, and where it appears within Spiritual Intelligence, is indicated below, followed by the text of the section * Normal Intelligence * Paranormal Intelligence * Biblical Examples of Spiritual Intelligence * Prophetic History in CAWKI * God's GPS * Amos 3:7 Principle * Ways not Works * Disciples that God seeks "Preach to the tree!" * Industrial Revolutions compared * The Inspiration Age (the 4th Industrial Revolution) * Prophetic Pictures * Benjamins * Prophetic Warnings * When the Stones cry out ---- So, what exactly are prophetic people hearing and seeing about the future of the church? Do you ever hear a healthy prophet say: everything will be as it is; the church of the future will be just as the church that we know right now? I don’t. Therefore: what happens if nothing happens? For decades, many prophetic men and women have had what I call prophetic pictures. They are like distant glimpses of a reality not yet there, shadows of something brewing, rumors and rumblings of something about to arrive. You might remember the vision that Kansas City’s Mike Bickle related. 1982 he was in Cairo, Egypt, and had heard God say to him: “In one generation I will change the shape of the church and its expressions.” Prof. Nigel Sykes, Warwick University, UK, a prophetic man to whom God has shown some of the future economic developments around the globe, has a constant theme: how the caterpillar develops into a butterfly. Rick Joyner, a prophetic teacher in the US, picked up the same picture: a church like a caterpillar, creeping up and down along the earth, that will transform into a beautiful butterfly, able to spread its wings and not any more be confined to creeping along the contours of the earth, but freed and newly carried by the winds of the Spirit. In the UK at the end of the 1980’s, a number of prophetic voices communicated that God was saying this: “Give me back my church, so that I can give it back to the world.” This implies that the church has been taken captive by controlling leaders who have shielded it from the world, who will have to let go of their control, give God back the ownership of his church, who will, in turn, restore it into its rightful place as a blessing to this world. In 2002, Andrea Xandry, a prophetic man in Zürich, Switzerland, wrote a book likening the present situation of the church with Paul’s journey from Malta to Rome. During a violent storm, the ship was about to perish with all hands on board. However, Paul had a prophetic word for everyone, which later came true. He said: “No one will be lost – only the ship.” (Acts 27:22). In a similar fashion, Xandry speaks of the ship as a picture for the church. As we know it today, the church will not be able to reach its apostolic destiny. For this, all had to abandon ship and take a swim. Everyone reached land in safety... Lucas Sherraden, a pastor in Houston, Texas, spoke of a “baptism of fire” coming to the church, burning away the slacks, purifying the inner heart desires of God’s people. This will result in an ongoing outbreak of apostolic demonstrations of God’s power in signs and wonders. The miraculous and the supernatural will become normal in many churches. Sherraden said, “Church” will not be what we have come to experience and know. The most powerful demonstrations of God’s power did not happen when God’s people gathered for meetings, but it happened when those immersed in fire went out to the world. Miracles happened to the lost. I saw neighborhoods gathering in front of houses where someone everyone knew had just been healed of terrible diseases. I saw people in the workplace stop their work because someone was healed right on the job. The greatest expressions of church happened unexpectedly and in unpredictable places. This will also lead to spiritual fidelity to be restored. I saw church leaders and Christians who were on the trading block selling themselves to many things. Church growth was a fascination and it became harlotry. Effective ministry and techniques that led to life transformation were fascinations and leaders were selling themselves to be more effective. After the river of fire experience - spiritual adultery burned away for many.”